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Gamescom reveals and announcements, Gameumentary looks into the indie scene in Miami, Devil May Cry 5 gameplay and Total War Three Kingdoms gameplay and info, Heather Alexandra on what it means to buy a game, Patrick Klepek on how the esports community is held back by promoting people like Duncan "Thorin" Shields, Noah Caldwell-Gervais takes another look at No Man's Sky and at how the game's lore and characters now represent its development and the kinds of players that interact with it, Forza 2 to be removed from Xbox store, Hitman 1 missions to be remastered for Hitman 2 for free if you own the original, Emma Kidwell covers how Neopets influenced a generation of game developers, Katie De Sousa and Zoë Curnoe write about their experiences working at Riot, Gaming Historian on the history of Spyro the Dragon, Austin Wood's wild night in Atlanta with the voice of Geralt of Rivia, and more.

This demo is set 20 years after the game’s start date and showcases a battle as it can play out in a Total War: THREE KINGDOMS campaign.

Available for all to play at Gamescom 2018, The Ambush of Sun Ren sees the player commanding the children of Sun Jian and their retinues, defending against waves of incoming heroes and warriors in a desperate bid for survival. Spectacular visuals and lighting bring this misty, moon-washed valley to life, as floating lanterns paint the scene and trees burst into flames, casting dynamic shadows as thousands of troops clash.

This battle also treats players to another look at Total War: THREE KINGDOMS’ campaign map. Authentic, atmospheric and striking in its detail, it’s the most beautiful Total War campaign map yet.

In a first for the Total War series of strategy games, Three Kingdoms will have a day and night cycle. The sun will move across the sky during your turn – you’ll notice the effect especially if you like taking a while – and should you attack someone on the campaign map, the time of day will determine whether or not you get a night-time or daytime battle. In previous games, you would decide this by clicking a button to delay your attack, essentially re-rolling the weather conditions and time of day.

Spying returns in Total War: Three Kingdoms, but with an entirely new system governing it. Whereas in most previous Total Wars, spies were a dedicated class of Agent (a campaign hero), in Three Kingdoms they are recruited from among the ranks of your regular characters.

Characters run through Total War: Three Kingdoms at every level. You’ve probably already heard that – it’s run through developer Creative Assembly’s marketing at every level – but we’re only just learning what it means.

In Total War: Three Kingdoms, your factions strengths and weaknesses at campaign level will change over the course of a game. It sounds like they’ll be determined by the characters that are most prominent within your faction, reinforcing once again the centrality of people to Creative Assembly’s latest historical epic. Senior designer Leif Walter tells us:

The Quakecon, DOOM Eternal gameplay reveal was full of OMFG moments and our resident DOOM Slayer Ian Higton has put 13 of them into this DOOM Eternal preview video. Check out the Blood Punches, Invasions, Meat Hooks and many other OMFG moments that makes DOOM Eternal look like a BFG (Big Fun Game)!

Discover 'The Company' in Battlefield V. For the first time ever in Battlefield, assemble a customized collection of soldiers, weapons, and vehicles, and take them on journey through World War 2. Select specialized combat roles for each soldier in your Company, then get the gear to match. Upgrade your vehicles and aircraft – from durability to firepower, the choice is always yours.

I’ve always been a sucker for a good ninja-themed game, and The Messenger captures that Ninja Gaiden/Shinobi vibe well. Sharp pixel art, catchy chiptunes and an interesting twist define this Devolver-published platformer. While The Messenger looks like a perfectly solid Shovel Knight-esque platformer on the surface, the release date trailer below shows how players will be hopping between 8 and 16-bit versions of the game, and doing some clever things with this power. There’s not long to wait, either. The game will be launching in just under two weeks, on August 30th.

We’ve been dying, dying, and dying some more to catch a glimpse of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice gameplay since it was revealed at E3 2018. And now, courtesy of the Gamescom 2018 IGN Live stream, we have that first reel of gameplay. As expected, it’s beautiful, gory, and brutal all at once.

Square Enix has kept its lips shut about The Quiet Man since announcing it in June at E3. Back then, it was said that more information on the “cinematic action experience” would be coming in August. That’s the month we’re in now – and yes, we have a new trailer to watch.

The team behind PlayStation 4 horror adventure game “Until Dawn” are working on a series of stand-alone, cinematic branching horror games called “The Dark Pictures Anthology,” Supermassive Games CEO Pete Samuels announced Tuesday.

Everyone wants to know when Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord is coming out, including us. We asked Armagan Yavuz, lead developer and founder of TaleWorlds Entertainment, exactly that when we spoke to him at Gamescom. We weren’t surprised that he couldn’t provide a release date, but we were surprised to hear him reveal that the studio has spent the past several months working 80 hour weeks to bring the game to market.

Dying Light: Bad Blood is Techland's approach to blending PvP, PvE, and battle royale elements, creating a unique scramble for resources in an attempt to be the last player standing. I enjoyed the standalone competitive multiplayer title when I played it earlier this year, and now everyone else will have a chance to get their hands on it as it launches on Steam Early Access in September.

Several years after escaping the dungeon hell of Kickstarter but a little later than planned, Underworld Ascendant has announced a release date of November 15th. Y’know, the action-RPG coming from OtherSide Entertainment? Y’know, the studio co-founded by Ultima Underworld designer Paul Neurath and Deus Ex director Warren Spector? Y’know, whose legacies are felt in immersive sim-y elements from sneaking to stacking boxes to pass obstacles? That one, them lot, that stuff. Have a gander in the new trailer fresh out of Gamescom today.

It’s a late night shift and things are quiet. That nosy journalist who always says she’s working on a book took her espresso and sat down in the corner. A dapper looking elf wanders in with his literal succubus of a girlfriend. It’s gonna be a slow night in Coffee Talk, but that’s fine.

Space (HULK!): Tactics is due out October 9th, publishers Focus Home announced today. (What’s this one about?) This latest adaptation of the venerated Games Workshop tabletop wargame does that same ol’ top-down turn-based tactical thing, only this time with the twist of special power-up cards. You can catch fleeting glimpses of this Space Marine vs. Tyranid action in a new trailer below.

The other game that Deadly Premonition director Hidetaka “Swery” Suehiro has been working on is, it turns out, a Limbo-lookin’ deadly platformer of trial, error, and mutilation… only it seems your head can roll away from your corpse and merrily go gurgling in search of your missing pal? That’s The Missing: J.J. Macfield And The Island Of Memories, a game which Suehiro’s studio, White Owls, announced in February 2017 with Arc System Works but has been largely under wraps. Now a new trailer out of Gamescom shows yep, yup, those are some lively death animations and that sure is a rolling, gurgling head.

Ahead of gamescom 2018, Square Enix and Dontnod have revealed story details and a new trailer for Life is Strange 2. This time around, the game will be focused on a pair of brothers. Two two find themselves fleeing from their home in Seattle, Washington and heading to Puerto Lobos, Mexico.

Two brothers Sean and Daniel Diaz, 16 and 9, are forced to run away from home after a tragic incident in Seattle. In fear of the police, Sean & Daniel head to Mexico while attempting to conceal a sudden and mysterious supernatural power.

After numerous teases, a free tie-in game and what feels like a very long wait, we finally got an in-depth look at Life is Strange 2 last night at a pre-Gamescom showcase. Two early sequences from the game were shown, one of which will be playable on the show floor, giving us our first (proper) look at Life is Strange 2's main characters and teasing what the long road has in store for them. We're not in Arcadia Bay anymore, everything looks very different, and really, that's a very good thing indeed.

World War 3 is a multiplayer military FPS set in a modern, global conflict. Strong teamplay, national armed forces, real locations, full body awareness and a versatile customization system all contribute to the authenticity of the modern combat experience enhanced by other essential elements such as a robust ballistic system, advanced armors and life-like weapons. Produced in cooperation with military R&D centers and consultants, World War 3 shows the consequences of every battle in the context of a global war campaign on a strategic war map. Coming to Steam fall 2018.

Windjammers for the Neo Geo was a lovely little thing – a bright and summery frisbee-sport hybrid of tennis, volleyball and a fighting game. While it wasn’t a huge hit in its own time, Dotemu have announced that they’re working on Windjammers 2, due out on PC in 2019. While an improbable game to get a sequel, it’s likely due to a resurgence of interest in the game across YouTube and streaming services. Despite its age, Windjammers is a rising star in the fighting game scene, too.

We’ve been dying, dying, and dying some more to catch a glimpse of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice gameplay since it was revealed at E3 2018. And now, courtesy of the Gamescom 2018 IGN Live stream, we have that first reel of gameplay. As expected, it’s beautiful, gory, and brutal all at once.

Set sail in an all-new ONE PIECE adventure in ONE PIECE: World Seeker! Luffy and the Straw Hat Pirates are back in a new story that puts players’ into Luffy’s point of view, as he battles and explores an expansive and seamless world. Open landscapes provide many paths for players to experience Luffy’s gum-gum abilities and swing into action.

Sign up for the Trials Rising Closed Beta coming September 13th – September 16th: www.trialsgame.com/beta. Experience the excitement of motocross racing as you take on your competition on crazy tracks around the world and explore the limitless content from the trials community.

Koalas aren’t bears, and their diet of eucalyptus leaves apparently doesn’t get them drunk. But who cares what the science nerds say, because it’s fun to imagine them as shiftless stoners. Stone, an upcoming adventure game, casts a rough-around-the-edges koala in its titular role, a kind of mashup of Jeff Lebowski and Hunter S. Thompson.

Ubisoft announced at Gamescom today that Tom Clancy's The Division 2 is now available for preorder. There are four different tiers of The Division 2 coming out so buckle up. You can preorder the Standard, Gold, Ultimate, or Collector's Edition for the Xbox One, PS4, and PC.

There are some who feel the strategy RPG genre peaked with Final Fantasy Tactics back in 1997, and I struggle to find a solid counter-argument. 6 Eyes Studio must feel the same way, as they’re happy to call their own entry into the genre – Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark – a spiritual successor.

You are a cog in the machine. Everything in its right place.
You are a cog in the machine. Everything in its right place.
You are a cog in the machine. Everything in its right place.
You are a cog in the machine. Everything in its right place.
You are a cog in the machine. Everything in its right place.
Individualism is ineffective. This is your number.
Individualism is ineffective. This is your number.
Individualism is ineffective. This is your number.
Individualism is ineffective. This is your number.
Individualism is ineffective. This is your number.

In Just Cause 4, gigantic Tornados rip through the destructible world, tear airplanes out of the sky, and send huge pieces of debris spiralling through the air. This is not only visually stunning, but they open up unique and brand new gameplay opportunities that just aren’t available in any other video game. Thanks to the new Apex Engine, you’ve never seen anything like this before!

Inmost is an atmospheric, story-driven puzzle platformer, following three playable characters within one dark, interconnecting story. In an old abandoned castle, you’ll need to explore every nook and cranny, avoid detection, slice your way through enemies and spring deadly traps in order to escape the evil that lurks within…

Falcon Age is a first-person, single-player action adventure. As Ara, learn to hunt, gather, and fight to reclaim her cultural legacy in the lost art of falcon hunting against a force of automated colonizers. Falcon Age is coming to PS4™ with optional PS VR support.

Alex Hunter is back for The Journey: Champions in FIFA 19, and he's joined by playable characters Danny Williams and Kim Hunter. Chase UEFA Champions League and FIFA Women's World Cup France 2019™ glory as you experience three distinct stories in the finale of The Journey. Learn more:

At E3 2018, Devolver Digital revealed Metal Wolf Chaos would be receiving a worldwide release as Metal Wolf Chaos XD on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC later in 2018. Now, that release window has been pushed back. It will not make its western debut until the middle of 2019.

Fatshark has just announced the first DLC for Warhammer: Vermintide 2. It’s called Shadows over Bogenhafen, and it’s coming out on August 28. Players will head to the eerie city of – this part’s obvious – Bogenhafen, a merchant city on the river Bogen.

The first-ever BATTLETECH expansion comes complete with three new ‘Mechs (including the highly anticipated Hatchetman), a challenging new mission type, and a new tropical biome, along with its featured namesake, Flashpoints. Flashpoints are high-stakes branching short stories, comprised of procedural mercenary missions linked together with new crew conversations, special events, critical choices, and valuable rewards. To ramp up the intensity, some Flashpoint stories will feature “Consecutive Deployments” in which players won’t be able to repair their ‘Mechs between missions.

Ubisoft has just lifted the veil on Maverick, Rainbow Six Siege Operation Grim Sky’s new, blowtorch-wielding attacker. The announcement is still light on specifics, but it seems Maverick’s gadget will primarily cut small pieces out of walls, letting you peek through and rain bullets on unsuspecting enemies.

Operation Grim Sky brings two new game-changing Operators to Team Rainbow. The attacker, Maverick, uses his Suri torch to burn holes in breakable surfaces and reinforced walls, while Clash’s CCE shield and taser make her a formidable crowd-control defender. See gameplay of the new Operators and their gadgets on the completely reworked Hereford Base map.

Ubisoft are planning a slew of operator reworks over the coming months in order to bring a few of the less popular Rainbow Six Siege character into the game’s competitive meta. We already knew that Thatcher was being targeted for a gadget rework, but it turns out that Lion, Frost, Castle, and even Glaz are also being targeted for operator reworks.

Following Beast of Winter, Pillars of Eternity 2’s next DLC is Seeker, Slayer, Survivor, a completely different type of adventure that places players into a gladiatorial arena fighting for the glory of Galawain, god of the hunt.

If you've fallen hard for Forza Horizon 2 after Microsoft gave you the chance to try it for free this month, you'd better grab the extra content and DLC sooner rather than later - developer Turn 10 has confirmed the racer is now speeding towards its "end of life".

THQ Nordic has announced that they have picked up the Timesplitters property and released trilogy, as well as the rights to Free Radical's Second Sight. This puts THQ Nordic in a position to not only re-release the old Timesplitters games, but to make new ones, as well.

Steam’s putting adult content on ice while Valve implements a new set of content filters on Steam, according to one visual novel developer. Dharker Studio was set to launch Negligee: Love Stories on September 7, but after talking with Valve about an unusually lengthy review process, that release date is now set to “When Steam Says OK.”

By virtue of having Amazon Prime, a lot of Twitch members have Twitch Prime as well, a natural conclusion with Twitch's parent company being the massive online retailer and all. One of the benefits of Twitch Prime had, since its initial introduction, been the ability to avoid ads while still contributing monetarily to the service and streamers. In an announcement today, Twitch has revealed plans to remove that particular benefit of Twitch Prime.

Compared to other online ads, Twitch ads are relatively unobtrusive. But they’re still obnoxious as hell. You tune in to watch your favorite streamer, and then the same 10-second ad plays three times in a row. Unfortunately, Twitch announced yesterday that Twitch Prime will no longer offer an ad-free viewing experience.

A report by Sydney newspaper the Daily Telegraph has resulted in the Australian Defence Force cutting ties with two prominent Australian YouTubers, Elliott “Muselk” Watkins (pictured above, a member of Australia’s Overwatch World Cup Team in 2017) and Alen “ChampChong” Catak.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge on Thursday awarded Take-Two Interactive Software Inc (TTWO.O), the maker of the “Grand Theft Auto” series, a preliminary injunction to stop a Georgia man from selling programs that it said helps players cheat at the best-selling video game.

With games it has been a little more complicated. While games in Germany have recently been officially declared a “cultural asset” (which is as close to a nomination for being an art-form as any medium could ever hope for), you still cannot find Nazi symbols in any games released in Germany.

Why was the exception that was applied to movies not applied to games as well?

Just a few days ago, Thorin, a self-professed “historian of esports” and 2017 Esports Industry Awards journalist of the year winner, announced he would be a paid commentator at ESL New York, a massive esports event for Counter-Strike. Thorin isn’t just some random Twitch or YouTube personality playing around with fringe rhetoric. Instead, major elements of the mainstream infrastructure of esports are not just propping him up but paying him.

The Overwatch World Cup group stages kicked off this week, and with fifteen games each they’re pretty intense to keep up with. If you’re only able to watch one match from this stage, though, you should make it Finland vs. South Korea. The match-up was always going to be hotly contested, but the two teams put on one of the best shows of professional Overwatch I’ve ever seen.

Evo 2018 played host to multiple tournaments over its three-day run for established games like Street Fighter V and Dragon Ball FighterZ as well as the as-yet-unreleased Soulcalibur VI, which is still in development and set to come out on October 19. Marie-Laure “Kayane” Norindr, a veteran competitor from France known for, among other things, winning even with her eyes closed, placed fifth in the Soulcalibur VI tournament. Afterward, she opened up to Kotaku not only about the game’s competitive future but also her own.

Two and a half years after its release, Rainbow Six Siege is 35 million players strong. Content creation is at an all-time high and the esports scene is now entering a state of maturity. As the game and the community keep growing together, we took some time to reflect upon some of its famous members in the Rainbow Six Siege documentary, Another Mindset.

Crowdfunding News (not sharing everything I find, just ones that look interesting, have known talent behind them, and a chance to succeed)

When Sean Noonan announced the Steam release date for his game, an infinite runner called Jack B. Nimble, he started getting emails from people who wanted review copies. Normally, this would be great news for any developer. Getting enough attention from media outlets and streamers can pull a game from the dregs of Steam and turn it into a skyrocketing success. But something didn’t seem right.

Video games are an expensive hobby, often demanding a great deal of trust whenever you buy a new one. Buying a game winds up being a number of things. A purchase is a gamble. It’s an encouragement. It’s a participation in exploitation. And it’s a conversation with the many people who brought you the game.

For Nina Freeman, a level designer at Fullbright and developer of the Internet-inspired Cibele and Lost Memories Dot Net, discovering how to create her own websites within Neopets was crucial to fostering her future in game development.

I’m not sure how to go about writing this, since I’ve never really done it before. How do you talk about 5 years of awful, painful, mosquito bites so that people who have never been bitten can understand? I don’t know, but I’ll try starting at the beginning. When I joined Riot I was almost religious about my devotion and love for League of Legends. This was my dream job, and also my first real non-freelance job. I was a baby drinking some strong kool-aide, there are things I put up with then, that I absolutely wouldn’t now.

There was a dark side to Riot which revealed a culture that encouraged immature and sexist behaviour that was often excused under the guise of one of the five values of Riot’s manifesto, “challenge convention”. I found this slogan was used as a weapon to silence criticism of a decision or action of another Rioter or senior leadership. It was used to make you feel like you didn’t belong inside the existing culture of fist bumps and hardcore League players. With Riot growing so rapidly in such a short period of time, it spiraled out of control and once that culture is established it takes years to unravel.

"We really want to work with game developers to be able to represent the community more accurately," Lopez said. "To be able to represent the community not just as a token, as well, but also get people -- young, black girls -- into coding."

After several years trapped in a Tetris licensing hell, Puyo Puyo Tetris finally appeared on PC earlier this year. Developed by Sonic Team, the game is a reflection of the long histories of both franchises. Each game began quietly as a PC title, evolving through consoles and arcades before finally returning to the PC this year for an incredible competitive collab. It’s one of the best competitive puzzle games made, and, if I’m real, a great fighting game as well. But how did these two titans come to such an unlikely and dramatic clash?

Politics are the backbone of modern fantasy: We’re so accustomed to western fantasy being married with what’s called “courtly drama” that one of the most widely watched TV shows has more to do with family blood rivalry and ideological strife than it does a quest or ancient evil.

The Witcher 3, for being mostly about a daughter trying to find her purpose, and her frustrated parents trying to find her, is still concerned with politics. Yes, there are warring nations, and archbisops, priests, kings, jarls, and every other ruler that fiction allows, The Witcher 3 also obliquely concerns itself with sexism and misogyny.

Don’t be put off by the cute facade that Jimmy And The Pulsating Mass wears. While this dreamlike RPG feels like its primary inspirations are from the Earthbound and Undertale sphere of family-friendly (though occasionally dark) RPGs, it’s not long before the mask slips. While the developer cites Yume Nikki as a core influence, I can’t help but feel that this one has a bit of Space Funeral‘s blood-splattered weirdness to it. Jimmy And The Pulsating Mass is out today. Check out the increasingly sinister trailer below, and an hours-long demo here.

On 5th August, five expert Dota 2 players sat down to play against a team of bots created by non-profit research lab OpenAI. They lost decisively. Just a few days from now that same team of bots, perhaps with the benefit of a few more weeks of training, will appear on stage at the biggest tournament in Dota 2 - The International - and play against a team of the world's best professional players. Winning there that would be a huge victory, a milestone for both AI and the games industry, and after seeing the bots' performance earlier this month it seems like the most likely outcome. You might be forgiven for feeling like this was the end of an era for game AI as we know it.

Learn about the history of Spyro the Dragon and it's developer, Insomniac Games. Spyro the Dragon was one of the first, open-world 3D platformers on the Playstation. Sony hoped it would help them compete against Nintendo's family-friendly games.

[TOTAL SPOILERS] This is an in-depth review and critique of No Man's Sky NEXT, looking at all the updates and changed content since its launch in 2016. It cover Pathfinder, Foundation, Atlas Rises and NEXT. The experience of No Man's Sky is much different than it originally was-- this video takes an hour to try and put a finger on how and why. It discusses and shows footage from all parts of the various plot threads, including endgame content and deep lore.

Chaos Mammoths are some of the biggest units in Total War: Warhammer, but bigger isn't always better. Their size (and fur) posed some real challenges, with implications for design as well as art - here's Rich to tell you all about it.

David Hayter, who voiced Metal Gear Solid protagonists Solid Snake and Naked Snake until he was replaced by Kiefer Sutherland in Metal Gear Solid V, has returned to the former role in a short video produced by filmmaker Jordan Vogt-Roberts in celebration of the Metal Gear franchise’s 31st anniversary.